RESISTANCE, PROTEST, PEACE-MAKERS,
PEACE-MAKING: STOP REFUELING, STOP ALL SUPPORT OF THE INVASION OF YEMEN (a
glance at a small part of the national opposition)

OMNI

UN Initiatives August 2018

Peace Action

War Resisters League

Just Foreign Policy

Win Without War

Veterans for Peace

Move On

Norwegian Refugee Council

STOP REFUELING: IS US POLICY
CHANGING?

Win Without War

Common Dreams

INTRODUCTION

I recently revisited a town where I
had once lived, curious about changes.As I drove into town on the main highway, I counted two new banks under
construction, and later I learned there was a third.The business of circulating honeymoney was
thriving.Intersections were packed with
cars and trucks.The town was on the
move!

At the end of the day, however, I felt differently.Maybe I was just tired, but at the end of the
day, for a few minutes I imagined myself in a satellite hovering over the
town.I couldn’t see the people walking,
nor even the vehicles hurtling.All
seemed stationary.The busy-bees town
seemed frozen in time

I had visited with several local people during the day.The book store was a welcome sight.It had no section on peace; but only a wall
of shelves for various US wars.I had
pinned a poppy on my coat lapel, which a friend had made, but the few who asked
had to be reminded of Armistice Day, replaced by Veterans Day.

The residents and their cars and trucks were moving, some banks were
expanding, but I found no change in the general, national acceptance of the
Democrat/Republican War Party and US Empire.Instead of poppies for peace, I found, as I had increasingly discovered
during recent decades, celebration of veterans, war, warriors—the troops.

I was there only a few hours, but if my freeze-frame recollection of the
town is true of the nation, then it helps me understand why the US is allied
with Saudi Arabia in destroying Yemen.The decimation of that country—the million people killed, wounded, made
homeless and hungry--would not be happening without US satellite intelligence,
US aircraft, US refueling tankers, and US bombs.And all of that destructive power could not
happen without its acceptance by the thousand other similar towns and cities of
the nation.

The purpose of this newsletter is to expose and protest the genocidal
invasion of Yemen.

US SUPPORT OF THE SAUDI INVASION of
YEMEN

Initially I intended to
distinguish articles on the history of the war from US support of the Sunni
Saudis v. the Shi’a Yemeni rebels, but because the subjects proved
indistinguishable, I have placed each item in its chronological order,
beginning in Feb. 2010.Some of these
articles refer to US mainstream media support of the US-Saudi alliance, for
which a separate section follows.

2010US Drone Warin Yemen

US/YEMEN
ANTI-TERRORISM, ANTI- INSURGENCY, CIVILIAN CASUALTIES

DEMOCRACY NOW 2-23-2010.

Prof. Charles
Schmitz, Am. Instit. For Yemen
Studies at TowsonU.

US operated
Predator drones in Yemen for several years against al Qaeda in support of Yemen
ruler Saleh against rebels in N. And S. Yemen.Many civilian casualties.Two ethnic groups:Zaydi and Hoothi.--Dick

2011WHOM TO SUPPORT AGAINST AL QAEDA?Obama withdraws from Saleh.Just
Foreign Policy News, July 11, 2011.

President Obama
sent his counterterrorism chief to meet with Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah
Saleh, with the envoy telling him that the only way to get US aid flowing again
was to sign an accord that would effectively remove Saleh from power, the New
York Times reports. The US
had long been a supporter of Saleh's authoritarian rule, viewing it as the best
way to combat Qaeda affiliates in Yemen, the Times says. But the Obama administration withdrew its support four
months ago, after concluding Saleh's government could not survive the uprisings
sweeping the country, and that US interests were better served in getting a new
government in place that might allow continued American attacks on Al Qaeda.

A gripping account of how al-Qaeda in Yemen rebounded from an
initial defeat to once again threaten the United States.

Far from
the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States and al-Qaeda are
fighting a clandestine war of drones and suicide bombers in an unforgiving
corner of Arabia.The Last Refugecharts the rise, fall, and
resurrection of al-Qaeda in Yemen over the last thirty years, detailing how a
group that the United States once defeated has now become one of the world’s
most dangerous threats. An expert on Yemen who has spent years on the ground
there, Gregory D. Johnsen uses al-Qaeda’s Arabic battle notes to reconstruct
their world as they take aim at the United States and its allies. Johnsen
brings readers inside al-Qaeda’s training camps and safe houses as the
terrorists plot poison attacks and debate how to bring down an airliner on
Christmas Day. The Last Refuge is an
eye-opening look at the successes and failures of fighting a new type of war in
one of the most turbulent countries in the world.

“Gregory Johnsen has written a break-through
book on one of the most under-reported and misunderstood stories of the post
9-11 era. Penned in gripping prose and with incredible attention to detail,The
Last Refugeunfolds with the pace of an action novel.
But this story is all too true. If we ignore the widening covert war in Yemen
and fail to learn from its complicated history, we do so at our own peril.
Years from now, Johnsen will be seen as one of the few who got it right.” —
Jeremy Scahill, author of the international bestseller,Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army

With an estimated several hundred military
advisers already deployed, Washington and its allies are already being drawn
ever deeper into Yemen's
internal conflicts, Reuters reports. U.S. and foreign involvement is
increasing sharply, moving well beyond the long-running but now also
intensifying campaign of drone strikes.
Growing numbers of special forces
advisers are now training Yemen's military.

Some, including
US Naval War College expert Hayat Alvi, warn that a "myopic" focus on
counterterrorism may be blinding the US to other issues. She suspects that in Yemen as elsewhere, the U.S. is being
drawn deeper into growing region-wide struggle between ethnic Sunni and Shi'ite
forces itself fueled by growing confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Saudi's Yemen policy, she believes, is focused primarily not
on Al Qaeda but on crushing the northern Yemeni Shi'ite rebellion.

2016Maggie
Michael.“Drone Strike Got al-Qaida’s
No. 2.Ex-bin Laden aide commanded
network’s Yemen branch.”NADG (June 17, 2016).Killing Nasir al-Wahishi “…dealing
the global network its biggest blow since the killing of Osama bin Laden.”He “is the latest in a series of senior
figures from al-Qaida’s Yemen branch who have been killed by U.S. drone strikes
the past five months.”At end a
paragraph reported an “airstrike” apparently from the Saudi-led coalition on a
“passenger bus carrying families fleeing the violence” that “killed more than
two dozen civilians,”.For the complete
report:

In Yemen, officials have declared a
state of emergency in the capital over a cholera outbreak that has
already killed 115 people. Yemen’s health, water and sanitation services have
been severely impacted by the ongoing U.S.-backed, Saudi-led war on
Yemen. The Saudis’ seemingly deliberate bombing of roads, bridges,
ports and cranes contributes to the death of a
Yemeni child every 10 minutes, every day, according to the U.N.Unnamed officials say the White House
is close to finalizing an arms deal worth $100 billion with Saudi Arabia, from
Dr. Hussein El Haddad, the director of one of the few hospitals in the
capital that is still functioning.Maryknoll News Notes
via Casa Cry (June 2017).–Dick

Fifty thousand children are believed to have died this year alone
including from a cholera outbreak and thousands have been displaced.

A Saudi-led coalition is seeking to install Abdrabbah Mansour Hadi
as president against a Shia-dominated Houthi rebellion backed by former
president Ali Abdullah Saleh. To accomplish this end, the Saudis have
mercilessly bombed civilian infrastructure with the goal of starving the
population into submission.

Their crime
has been aided and abetted by the United States, which has
provided intelligence for bomb targeting, pilot training and refueling
assistance for Saudi planes as well as ordinance which has been used to kill
and maim civilians.

The Obama administration provided over $100 billion in arms sales
to the Saudis and blamed the Houthis for the violence, saying they “had a way
of putting civilians into danger.” Trump expanded funding in a trip to the
kingdom and Jared Kushner has had a series of private meetings with Prince
Salman with whom he has got along with famously well.

2018William Boardman.“Mega Deaths from America.” Z Magazine (Jan. 2018).US support of slaughter in Yeman, part of US global war of
terror.–D

2018 Jane Ferguson.“American-Made Bombs in Yemen
Are Killing Civilians, Destroying Infrastructure and Fueling Anger at the US.”PBS, 5 July, 2018.This morning, Democracy
Now had a hard-hitting report on the U.S.-Saudi war in Yemen. They combined
highlights of the PBS Newshour series with
an interview with Jane Ferguson, the PBS Newshour journalist who “smuggled”
herself into Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen to report on conditions
there. [Just Foreign Policy reported this July
20.]Watch & share the Democracy Now
report.Tell Congress to act.

"I
think many of us felt as we went into the 21st century that it was unthinkable
that we could see a famine like we saw in Ethiopia, that we saw in Bengal, that
we saw in parts of the Soviet Union—that was just unacceptable," Lise
Grande, chief of the U.N.'s diplomatic mission in Yemen, said in
an interview with BBC News.

"Many
of us had the confidence that would never happen again and yet the reality is
that in Yemen that is precisely what we are looking at," she continued.
"We predict that we could be looking at 12 to 13 million innocent
civilians who are at risk of dying from the lack of food."

Asked
by BBC correspondent
Orla Guerin if the global community should be ashamed about what already has become the world's worst humanitarian
crisis, Grande responded: "Yes. There's no question we should be ashamed,
and we should, every day that we wake up, renew our commitment to do everything
possible to help the people that are suffering and end the conflict."

Following
Khashoggi's suspected murder, President Donald Trump has been hit with a new
wave of pressure to stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia and end support for the
coalition. While Trump, in an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes"
that aired Sunday, threatened "severe punishment" if the United
States finds evidence that Khashoggi was killed in the Saudi consulate in
Istanbul, the president has also
repeatedly said in recent days that he doesn't want
to cut off arms sales to the country because it would cost U.S. weapons
manufacturers jobs and profit.

Last month—even before
Khashoggi's suspicious disappearance—Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and a bipartisan
group of lawmakers introduced legislation that aims to
revoke all U.S. support for the war. It was welcomed by peace
advocates as a long overdue move that "offers a glimmer of hope to the
suffering people of Yemen."

William
D. Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for
International Policy and a supporter of Khanna's measure, argued Monday that "regardless of
what ultimately happened to Khashoggi, continuing U.S. arms sales and military
support to Saudi Arabia under current circumstances is immoral."

"Jobs
should not be an excuse to arm a murderous regime," Hartung asserted,
"that not only may be behind the assassination of a U.S. resident and
respected commentator but is responsible for thousands of civilian casualties in its
three-and-one-half-year military intervention in Yemen—the majority killed with
U.S.-supplied bombs and combat aircraft and U.S. refueling and targeting
assistance."

[What are we to
think of this almost equal attention to the death of one man and the death of a
nation?Is the death of one man
a tragedy, but the death of
millions is a statistic, a comment misattributed to Joseph Stalin?].

Jim O'Brien via H-PAD

The US/Saudi weapons deal is worth nearly $110 billion
immediately and $350 billion over 10 years, and by July 2017 10,000 civilians
had been killed and 7 million people were living in near-famine
conditions.But “the vast majority of
the media reports on the topic” omitted “whom the weapons will be used to
kill.”No major newspaper
criticized Trump for its close relationship with the SA dictatorship.“Such is most reporting on the US’s
relationship with Saudi Arabia.”

MSNBC
Not Reporting on Yemen

MSNBC has done 455 Stormy Daniels segments in the last year
— but none on U.S. war in Yemen.Why
is the supposed network of the anti-Trump resistance totally ignoring the
president’s most devastating war?

As FAIR has notedbefore,
to MSNBC, the carnage and destruction the U.S. and its Gulf monarchy
allies are leveling against the poorest country in the Arab world is simply a
non-issue.

On July 2, a year had passed
since the cable network’s last segment mentioning U.S. participation in the war
on Yemen, which has killed in excess of 15,000 people and resulted in over
a million cases of cholera.
The U.S. is backing a Saudi-led bombing campaign with
intelligence, refueling, political cover, military hardware and, as of
March, ground troops. None of
this matters at all to what Adweek calls “the
network of the Resistance,” which has since its last mention of the U.S. role
in the destruction of Yemen found time to run over a dozen segments highlighting
war crimes committed by the Syrian and Russian governments in Syria.Click for Sound

By way of contrast,
as MSNBC was marking a year without mentioning the U.S. role in
Yemen, the PBS NewsHour was running a three-part series on the war, with
the second part headlined,
“American-Made Bombs in Yemen Are Killing Civilians, Destroying Infrastructure
and Fueling Anger at the US.” The NewsHour’s Jane Ferguson reported:

The aerial
bombing campaign has not managed to dislodge the rebels, but has hit weddings,
hospitals and homes. The US military supports the Saudi coalition with
logistics and intelligence. The United States also sells the Saudis and
coalition partners many of the bombs they drop on Yemen.

Civilians
killed in strike on Yemen (11-15-18) (fleeing civilians in a bus)

Senate Clears
Arms Sales to Saudi Ally (11-16-18).

Saudis
Sanctioned in Writer’s Death (11-16-18).

CIA: Saudi
prince knew about journalist’s killing (11-17-18)

[I included
several of the reports on the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by 17
Saudis to illustrate the sub-topic of the NADG
and US mainstream media in generalallowing
the Saudi state murder of one person to compete with the war that is destroying
an entire nationThe fragmentation of
information into disproportionate historical and ethical bits by newspapers
calls readers to seek depth and coherence elsewhere--by reading books or
viewing documentaries.]

AnalysisSeveral of the reports claim that the “U.S.-backed,
Saudi-led coalition” (Sunni) is defending the “internationally recognized
Yemeni government” without explanation.That sounds favorable to the invasion, but it’s complicated. (Of course,
the fragmented, breaking news mode of journalistic reporting prevents in-depth
explanation in each item.Readers must
be well-informed, careful, and possess a good memory.) For example, In Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection (2016), you
find this history (pp. 160-61): Saudi Arabia’s long meddling in Yemeni
politics, the Arab Spring rebellion against autocratic President Saleh, the
replacement of Saleh by his vice president, Mansour Hadi, for a supposed
two-year interim term leading to elections, Hadi’s refusal to relinquish
office, World Bank insistence on suspension of fuel subsidies that supported
the poor, the uprising of the Houthis, a Shi’a rebel group demanding
reinstatement of the subsidies and representative government, “brute force”
response from Hadi, union of the Houthis and the deposed president Saleh, civil
war, Houthi conquest of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, and Hadi’s flight to Saudi
Arabia, government in exile, support from Saudi Arabia, SA bombing campaign
against Houthis, and more.Now, what,
who is the legitimate Yemeni government?

Civilian deaths in Saudis’
strikes But not all of the reports assuming a
US/Saudi/”internationally recognized Yemeni government” in exile are so biased.The 11-11-18
report provides contradiction analysis of the US claim of scrupulous
“precautions to prevent such bloodshed,” while the Saudi-US planes increase the
killing.In the first four paragraphs,
the AP reporter Lee Keath reported the US claim of care not to kill and showed
how false is the claim.And Keath notes
that the data for civilian casualties doesn’t include those killed by
side-effects, such as starvation—perhaps 50,000 children in 2017 alone.Now that’s responsible journalism.And it was published by the NWAG.

RESISTANCE,
PROTEST, PEACE-MAKERS, PEACE-MAKING

OMNI: Center for Peace,
Justice, and Ecology

OMNI originated in April 2001 as part of a comprehensive international
movement.At first, because the invasion
of Afghanistan occurred a few months later, and the invasion of Iraq two years
later, we were preoccupied with world peace and justice.Gradually, as we become better informed about
the climate catastrophe, we embraced ecology.See OMNI’s web site.

United Nations special
envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths told Security Council members he has
scheduled peace talks for Sept. 6 between Saudi-led coalition
leaders and Houthi militia heads. The sides have not met for such
discussions in two years.

There is no
military solution to the "absurd and futile war" being waged in
Yemen, and Saudi-led coalition forces are killing an increasing number of
Yemeni civilians, warns United Nations humanitarian coordinator Jamie
McGoldrick. He says civilians are being punished by both sides in the conflict
and urges all parties to consider their obligations to distinguish between
civilian and military targets.

Supporter, the War Powers Resolution Jon told you about
last week was just introduced in the House. I need you to call
your representatives today and ask them to cosponsor and support
H.Con.Res 138, the War Powers Resolution on the U.S. role in the war in
Yemen. Here's all you need to do:

1) Call the Capitol Switchboard today at 202-224-3121.

2) Follow
instructions to reach your Representative in the House of
Representatives, and then say (in your own words to the extent
possible):

3) My name is ______________, and I'm a constituent from
[YOUR CITY]. I'm calling to urge Representative ____________ to
cosponsor H.Con.Res 138, the War Powers Resolution on the U.S. role in
the war in Yemen. It is time for Congress to take back its
constitutional authority in authorizing U.S. wars. Please, co-sponsor
the War Powers Resolution to end the U.S. role in the war in Yemen.

Of all the horrendous foreign policy moves the Trump
administration has made, last week’s announcement from Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo might just top them all.

On Wednesday, Secretary Pompeo reported to Congress that
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were working to reduce
civilian casualties in their war on Yemen, in an attempt to avoid
limitations on U.S. military support for the coalition. [1]

Supporter, it was only last month that I wrote to you
about the Saudi-led coalition blowing up a school bus, killing dozens
of civilians, including 44 children. The bomb used to commit this
terrible war crime was made in the U.S.A.

It’s now crystal clear that the Trump administration
will stop at nothing, even bald-faced lying to Congress, to continue
its support for the largest humanitarian catastrophe on the planet.

Congress must act to reign in U.S. support for Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Some of our allies in Congress are reviving the effort to
invoke the War Powers Act for Congress to vote on whether the U.S.
is authorized to continue its support for the war in Yemen.

In the House, Representatives Ro Khanna (D-CA), Mark
Pocan (D-WI), and Adam Smith (D-WA) are leading the charge. Senators
Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) are echoing this charge
in the Senate.

I think Rep. Khanna put it best in response to the
Pompeo’s announcement when he said “Pompeo’s ‘certification’ is
a farce. The Saudis deliberately bombed a bus full of children. There
is only one moral answer, and that is to end our support for their
intervention in Yemen. If this executive will not do it, then Congress
must pass a War Powers Resolution.”

We came close to winning this vote last March with a
bill led by Senators Murphy and Mike Lee (R-UT). Republican leaders
essentially negotiated this human rights “certification” requirement to
siphon votes away from the bill that would have actually ended U.S.
support in the war.

In response to Pompeo’s certification announcement,
Senator Murphy stated “It might be interesting to revisit the
war powers resolution given the fact that some members voted against us
because they thought we were getting real teeth legislatively — and the
administration effectively ignored the language, maybe now there’s more
interest.”

Today marks 15 years
since the U.S. invasion of Iraq. While we rally in the streets to demand
accountability for the violence visited upon Iraqis for more than a decade,
our collective responsibility to dismantle militarism wherever it roots, in
whatever form it takes, cannot be ignored. That’s why, as we look towards a
future free of war and violence, today we’re asking you to take
action against U.S. support for Saudi bombing in Yemen.

Although Congress
has never authorized U.S. military involvement in Yemen, for three years the
United States has literally fueled the conflict. U.S.-supportednaval blockades and airstrikes carried out by the
Saudi-led coalition are the leading cause of casualties in Yemen. Airstrikes targeting schools,
hospitals, weddings, and public markets frequented by civilians have
decimated infrastructure and destroyed Yemen’s medical system.

As a result, Yemenis are facing a
massive humanitarian catastrophe,
with widespread famine and the
worst cholera epidemic in the
modern history. Since the beginning of the intervention in March 2015,
the United States has provided midair refueling to coalition jets, shared
intelligence for targeting assistance, and sold U.S. bombs to the
coalition.

That’s
why Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
and Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced S.J. Res. 54, which proposes the end to
U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition’s war on Yemen. The resolution
ends U.S. intelligence-sharing and refueling of coalition warplanes
conducting aerial bombings in Yemen, and invokes the War Powers Resolution
of 1973, passed in the wake of Vietnam, to force the withdrawal of U.S.
military forces engaged in unauthorized wars. While the bill carves out an
exception for forces “engaged in operations directed at al Qaeda or
associated forces,” creating a troubling endorsement of the war on terror,
right now this legislation presents the best existing opportunity to
withdraw U.S. support from an already devastating conflict.

With this historic vote set to take place in the Senate tomorrow or
Wednesday, please take action today! In response to S.J. Res 54, Senators
Todd Young (R-Ind) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) just introduced S.J. Res. 55
with the goal of continuing unconstitutional U.S. military aid to the
Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. The last vote in the Senate on arms sales to
Saudi Arabia, in June, passed by a margin of 53-47. Ask your Reps to vote YES on 54
and NO on 55 today. Thanks for all you do and onward
towards the end of all wars, including the war on terror!

"I am a constituent of Senator _____. Please support
the Sanders-Lee resolution S.J.Res. 54 that would end American involvement
in the war in Yemen. American military aid is fueling a humanitarian
crisis, and it is time for this to stop. I urge the Senator to vote
YES on the Sanders-Lee resolution S.J.Res. 54 this week, and NO on the
Young-Shaheen resolution S.J.Res. 55, which includes vague language that
could backfire and make it easier for the United States to provide
unconstitutional military aid to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen."

Support Sen. Murphy's Amendment:
No Tax Dollars for Killing Kids in Yemen

On August 9, an airstrike
by the Saudi-UAE-U.S. coalition bombing Yemen struck a bus packed with children
in the northern village of Dahyan, killing at least 51 people, including
40 children, according to the Red Cross.
Saudi regime spokesmen have defended this horrific massacre, calling the bus a
“legitimate military target.”

When journalists asked a senior U.S. official if the U.S. supplied the bomb the
Saudis used to blow up the bus full of kids and refueled the Saudi
warplane that dropped the bomb on the bus full of kids, he responded: “Well, what
difference does that make? We are providing the refueling and support
to Saudi aircraft. We are also selling them munitions that are being used ...
We are not denying that.”

CNN has established that
the bomb that the Saudi regime used to blow up the bus full of kids was made by
Pentagon contractor Lockheed Martin; transfer of the bomb to the Saudi
regime was approved by the U.S. State Department.

The Washington Post editorial board says: “It is long
past time to end U.S. support for this misbegotten and unwinnable war.
There is a clear path out: A U.N. mediator has called the various parties to
Geneva early next month to discuss a peace process. Among the first steps would
be a cease-fire... U.N. sources say the Houthis...are ready
to strike these accords, but the Saudi and UAE regimes have been
resistant...[the Saudi and UAE regimes] will accept a peace process only if it
is clear that they will not have Washington’s support for more war.”

Senator Chris Murphy has introduced an amendment to
the Pentagon appropriation that would cut off U.S. tax dollars for
this unconstitutional war – the war was never
authorized by Congress, every day the war continues it violates
Article I of the Constitution - unless Secretary of Defense Mattis
certifies that the U.S.-enabled Saudi airstrike on the bus full of kids
complied with international law and U.S. policy, something Mattis could never
do unless he wants to be known as a shameless liar.

52 Senators have voted
against against the war in a floor vote, either in June 2017 or in March 2018
on the Sanders-Lee-Murphy bill invoking the War Powers Resolution. Among Senate
Democrats, only Joe Donnelly, Joe Manchin, and Bill
Nelson have never voted against the war in a floor vote.

Urge Senators to speak out for and vote for the Murphy
amendment to cut off U.S. tax dollars for the kid-killing
Saudi war in Yemen by signing our petition.

We have a chance to save millions of lives by ending America's
shameful role in the war in Yemen.

Vermont progressive Senator Bernie Sanders and constitutional
conservative Senator Mike Lee of Utah have introduced a resolution to cut off
U.S. support for this illegal war. Because Congress has never
authorized the war in Yemen, Bernie’s resolution is guaranteed a vote within
days. This is huge. And we have just a few days to get our senators on board.

For three years, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the
United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been waging a secretive war in Yemen. Saudi
Arabia and its allies have deliberately put 8 million people a step away from
famine. Meanwhile, the United States continues to funnel bombs, planes, and
fuel into enabling Saudi and UAE brutality.

In the movie Spotlight, I play a journalist who is determined
to uncover abuse, no matter how powerful the abuser. Spotlight shows us that
harm against innocents can only persist when no one is watching. In Yemen,
the powerful figure enabling human rights abuse is our own government.

I believe that when the American people are presented with the
facts, we will act to stop our tax dollars from being used to bomb and starve
innocent Yemenis simply to advance the Saudi dictatorship’s military
ambitions.

“American-made
bombs - – dropped by American-made planes, refueled by American military forces
– - have created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. [It has] … plunged
millions to the brink of starvation, and sparked a cholera outbreak that kills
another Yemeni nearly every hour.”

Yemen
poses NO threat to our national security. Yet OUR government has helped fund
the Saudi-led war that has killed 10,000 innocent Yemenis. There is a
resolution in congress right now to stop this insanity. The Huffington
Post, Democracy Now and the New York Times have
published articles this week.

Sunjeev
Bery is MoveOn Campaign Director; before that he was at Amnesty International,
where he was their lead campaigner on Congressional efforts to block U.S.
weapons transfers to Saudi Arabia.

This
morning, he laid out a powerful case on Twitter against the Saudi war in Yemen,
against U.S. participation in that war, and in favor of the
Khanna-Massie-Pocan-Jones resolution to end U.S. participation in that war.

I
collected Sunjeev's tweets, together with the MoveOn endorsement of the
Khanna-Massie bill, in this post at Daily Kos. I want Democrats who read Daily
Kos to know about Sunjeev's case against the war and in favor of the
Khanna-Massie bill.

CNN conducted a powerful
8 minute interview with Jan Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council on the imminent threat of
famine in Yemen. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has said the U.S. should support
Saudi Arabia's planned attack on Yemen’s Hodeida port. Here’s what Jan Egeland
said about that plan:

"There
is one port here called Hodeida where we get all of the relief through and
where most of the commercial import has come through. That port is now
threatened by attack. If it is attacked, that lifeline will be cut and millions
will surely not have food."

Egeland concluded: "We need world leaders to put an end to both
the war and the economic collapse here."

Dick,
this is it. We have a HUGE chance to get Congress to stop
pouring support into Saudi Arabia’s bloody war in Yemen — and the vote could
be as soon as next week.

For
nearly four years, the U.S. has been shoveling weapons and military support
into the Saudi-UAE bombing campaign in Yemen.

But
last month, the Saudi Arabian government secretly hacked apart Washington
Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi with a bonesaw, then dissolved his body in
acid. [2]

Suddenly, Congress is realizing that the United States
shouldn't give a murderous regime a blank check to slaughter more civilians
in Yemen.

The
tide has turned in a BIG way. Congress gets back in session next week.
Champions in the House and the Senate are forcing votes to end U.S. support
for the brutal war in Yemen. And for the first time, we could
win these votes.

Win
Without War is pulling out all the stops to drive pressure on Congress. But
the last time we got a vote on this war, Saudi Arabia literally hired 200 lobbyists to squelch our voices and
keep Congress supporting their war crimes. That’s why we need your help.

Can you chip in an emergency gift of $15 to help Win Without
War drown out the Saudi lobby and end U.S. support for the brutal war in
Yemen once and for all?

For
over a year, Win Without War activists like you have been pushing to demand
an end to the war in Yemen. And the whole time, the Trump administration has
been dodging, ducking, and outright lying to justify giving a thumbs up to
Saudi and U.A.E. war crimes.

Then, last week, something extraordinary happened: TheTrump
administration called for a ceasefire in Yemen.

But
there’s zero guarantee that Trump and his war cabinet will back up their
words by actually cutting off U.S. support for the Saudi-U.A.E. coalition.

Congress has to vote to force Trump's hand and end U.S.
support for this brutal war before it's too late. Thousands have
already died because the Saudi-UAE coalition bombed hospitals and school
buses and blocked lifesaving food and medicine, all with U.S. support. Now,
the United Nations is warning that half of Yemen's population - 14 million
people - could die of starvation by the end of the year. [3] All because the
United States refuses to rein in Saudi war crimes.

We need to let Congress know: If they don’t end U.S. support
for this war, the deaths of literally millions of Yemenis
will be on their hands.

Win
Without War is joining with partners to raise an massive grassroots ruckus.
We’re meeting with members of Congress and their staff on a daily basis. But
we need your help.

The
last time we got a Senate vote on Yemen, we were supposed to lose — badly.
Instead, your tireless activism got us just a few votes shy of ending U.S.
support of the war for good. Now, together, we’re about to clinch this fight
and finally stop our tax dollars flowing to bomb kids in Yemen. And I
couldn’t be prouder to be in this movement alongside you.

Anti-war
groups and progressive lawmakers expressed cautious optimism this weekend
after the Trump administration announced it would end its policy of refueling
Saudi planes that are engaged in Saudi Arabia's assault on Yemen—but called
for bolder and broader policy changes to ensure an end to the attacks that
have killed more than 15,000 civilians.

On
Friday, the Washington
Postreported that the refueling practice
would end, with Saudi Arabia claiming in a statement that it now has the
ability to refuel its own planes—a claim that U.S. Defense Secretary James
Mattis bolstered in his own comments on the policy change but that drew
skepticism from critics. The change came amid heightened calls from across
the political spectrum to end the U.S. military's cooperation with the
Saudis, following the killing of journalist Jamal
Khashoggi.

Progressives including Rep. Ro
Khanna (D-Calif.) and Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have
called for an end to U.S. participation since long before Khashoggi, a Saudi
who wrote critically of his home country's government, was killed by Saudi
agents in October.

Khanna
and Sanders both said they would take action in Congress to hold the
administration accountable for its pledge to end refueling efforts.

"When
it comes to Yemen, talk is cheap and those on the brink of starvation can't
afford any political stunts. The world is watching to see if this is merely
more empty promises or if the United States will finally use its power to end
the suffering in Yemen." —Kate Kizer, Win Without WarCalling the decision one that
"could avert a humanitarian crisis," Khanna told The
Intercept that Congress should now pass Senate Resolution 54
and House Resolution 138, which direct the president to remove U.S. forces
entirely from the war in Yemen unless they have been authorized by Congress.

"Similar
to what we did in Somalia's case, when the White House said that we weren't
going to have any intervention, Congress went ahead and passed both of the
War Powers Resolution [measures], just to make sure that was
definitive," Khanna said, referring to Congress's urging of President Bill
Clinton to limit U.S. involvement in Somalia in
1993.

"I'm
glad that the Trump administration is ending U.S. refueling of Saudi aircraft
in Yemen's devastating war... U.S. participation in this conflict is
unauthorized and unconstitutional and must end completely," Sanders said
in a statement. "I will soon bring Senate Joint Resolution 54 back to
the floor for another vote, so the Senate can compel an end to U.S.
participation in the Yemen war as a matter of law, not simply as a matter of
the president’s discretion."

But other critics of the
country's involvement in the war, which has devastated the impoverished
country since it began in 2015 as the Saudi coalition has supported the
Yemeni government in its attempt to defeat the Houthis, say the U.S. must go
much further to ensure that the assault can't continue.MOREhttps://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/11/11/applauding-plan-stop-refueling-saudi-planes-progressives-call-further-action-end